Race Report - IM Santa Rosa

Congratulations to Sonny for completing the IM Santa Rosa. Here is his Race Report...

Finally getting around to writing up my race report and very happy I have something write up because half through the race, it didn't look like I was going have much to write about.

Pre-race days The week of the race was really chaotic & busy at work and home. I didn't get a change to start packing for the race & trip until the night I was supposed to fly out. A packing idea I stole from Tim Pflugher, was to pack all the gear I would need for each leg, together and in their own bag. It really did help make sure you had everything for that particular leg and also, for packing nicely into my luggage. I finally got done packing late Tuesday but I needed to get up early Wednesday to drop off my dogs at the boarders at 4 am before catching an early flight...ugh

I thought I could catch up on some sleep on the flight over but it didn't really happen. Suffice to say, I was really tired by time we finally got to Santa Rosa. Luckily, I think I was able to catch up on some rest the next couple of days as it mostly consisted of just checking-in, race gear drop offs and checking out the two transitions areas (since it's a point-to-point race) and lake Sonoma where the swim was being held. We made a stop on one of the days to the Charles Schulz museum to check out Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the rest of the Peanut gang.

One of my pre-ritual things i did prior to last years IM, prior HIMs and past marathons, I try snack on about 3-4 salty, soft pretzels a day and while constantly drinking gatorade or coconut water throughout the day, starting around 3 days prior to the race. However, I wasn't able to grab any soft pretzels before I flew out and was only able to drink 16 oz of coconut water a day. I'm sort of a same routine / superstitious person and this bugged me I wasn't able to do this ritual.

Race day I went to bed early the night before at around 8 PM and actually got some decent sleep. I got up at 2:30 AM, ate breakfast and then headed to transition 2 by 3:45 AM to drop of my special needs bag and catch the 40 minute shuttle bus up to transition 1. Temperature at Lake Sonoma was a little chilly that morning, somewhere in the mid 50s. Got to transition 1, added my 3 bottles of Infinit to the bike and attached my bike computer and then got ready for the swim.

Swim - goal was to come in between 1:25 - 1:35 Water temperature was barely wet suit legal, I believe it was 75.8 degrees, pretty warm compared to the morning air. The start time was slated for 6:10 and there were no pros in the field, so age groupers started immediately. It was a rolling start and I seated myself in the 1:30-1:40 group. After waiting about 20 minutes or so, I finally got into the water. The first turn buoy was not that far from the start which led to a bottleneck and real tight swimming conditions. I was constantly bumping into other swimmers in the beginning but luckily, I didn't encounter any hard kicks or punches. I wasn't able to get into any steady groove until probably 500 yards into the swim when it got into the long straight-away section of the swim and swimmers were able to separate from each other. Something unique about this swim was a fog/mist started to develop on top of the water as the sun was rising. As a person with vision in only one eye and only ok at buoying sighting to start with, it made it a little harder. Sighting became even harder on the return portion of the swim of lap as the buoys were on the right, same direction as the blinding sun, along with fog/mist...fun (check out the pics I copied from triathlete.com that accurately captures the sunrise/mist). Finally finished the 1st lap, got out of the water to cross the mat and back into the water again for the 2nd lap. I almost immediately wandered off course because I couldn't see the buoys and started going towards the inbound swimmers. A kayaker finally caught me and redirected me by saying "swim towards the sun, swim towards the sum". I think I over-corrected because I really far right from the buoys. Interesting part of this loop was towards the return leg of the lap, another swimmer accidentally ended up stroking hard down onto my calf which caused it to immediately cramp up. I was able to continue to swim while trying to kickout the cramp. Final swim time 1:34:58 (barely made my range)

T1 - 13:54 This has to be the longest and steepest T1 ever! It was 0.4 mile trek a steep hill to get to transition, I don't recall seeing anyone run up the hill (hopefully the panoramic picture I took can depict the length & steepness correctly). I took my time changing, put on regular bike jersey for the add pockets and because it's just more comfortable to me. Slapped on a good dosage of cycling chamois cream and drank about a cup of water. I think this was my first mistake of the day, as I should have drank more and should have had probably gatorade or something with electrolytes because the swim was pretty warm and I probably sweated a good amount.

Bike - goal was to come in around 6:30-7:00 The first 60-70 miles of this course are really beautiful as you ride pass vineyards after vineyards. After an initial small climb, the next 2-3 miles is a very steep, fast decline. From there, the next 60 miles or so consisted of rolling hills, kind of similar to those on the French Creek Iron tour. The were about 2 or 3 long extended, long climbs but none too steep. I couldn't stay in the aero position for long periods of time because of the constant rolling hills. I tried to stay in zone 2 throughout this portion of the ride, always spinning up the hills in my granny gears versus trying to somewhat power up the hill. I finally got to Santa Rosa city perimeter around mile 60 and was feeling ok while being able to hold in 17ish mph and was about to enter the flatter section of the bike ride. But things were about to turn very quickly for me. At around mile 65, I started to feel tightness in left quad, then later in my other quad. I'll be honest when I say I've never really experienced leg cramps or thightness when cycling, not during any of my 100+, 90+ or 80+ mile training rides or even in last years IM. I definitely experienced them in some past marathons but not while cycling. So I guess I didn't respond correctly where I would usually immediately take some base salt and start upping my drink intake when I'd cramp up during a run, here, I did neither, I don't know what I was thinking. So by mile 80, both of my quads and calves cramped up so badly, I couldn't even manage to unclip and to pull over. I ended up breaking to a stop but tipped over into a small ditch on the side of the road. Luckily no major injuries, aside from some scrapes. I must have just passed a police car and a support truck because they were at my side in just a few minutes. They tried to stretch out my cramps but couldn't, they would try to stand me up but I'd crumbled right back down. I laided there for a few minutes before being able to grab some base salt from my bike and dumping pretty much all of it into my drink. I drank it all and started drinking my other bottle mix. The police office and support crew were trying to determine my feasibility by continuing and trying to see if I could even stand up. It was about 10 minutes and I still wasn't able to really stand up without cramps flaring up. The office said he was calling in medical vehicle to get me and that my day was done. I really had to beg him to please let me continue to work out my cramps. I had used up all my base salt and I ended up asking any riders passing by if they had any salt tablets. Luckily, a female athlete was kind enough to stop and give me 2 tablets, which I used it in my other remaining drink. After another 5 minutes or so, I was finally able to demonstrate to the office I could stand with no cramping and he let me continue. I kid you not when I say I was about to start crying some serious man tears if he didn't let me continue. So, I finally got going again and it took some serious work to complete those last 32 miles. I had to stop every other mile in the beginning because one of my legs would start cramping again. There were points were I was peddling with one leg because the other was cramping. I even had to walk my bike up one hill after I initially tried but started cramping up. I got to an aid station around mile 90 where I was able to get more base salt and load up on more liquids. For the rest of the ride, I just kept in my small gear and peddled as easy as I could and somehow, I finally made it the transition 2. I was never so happy to see a stinking transition as I did that day.

Looking back, there were several mistakes I made that contributed to my biking issue: as noted earlier, I didn't heed the initial signs of cramping. Also, weather heated up very quick from the morning temperatures because by noon, it was already in the high 80s and looking at my liquid intake, I wasn't drinking enough. I typically drink 24 oz sport bottle per hour and by the end of my 4th hour, I had just finished my 3 bottle. I think the weather threw my off a little because even though it was hot, it wasn't humid like it had been in the east coast, so I must have eased off on the amount I was drinking. Also, I guess maybe I didn't train well enough for the constant rolling hills, I thought I had but results say otherwise. - Final bike time 7:22:17 (didn't hit my range but at that point, that was the last thing on my mind)

T2 - 10:25 I sat there for a bit before I even started to change. I brought in with me, my bottle of the highly concentrated base salt and drink from the bike and finished off. At the same time I was trying to think, how the hell am I going to run a marathon with these legs. So I finally started changing into my running gear while trying to calculate in my head how long it would take to walk the whole thing.

Run - goal was to come in around 4:30 - 4:50 I started walking the first hundred yards or so of the run before I attempted to run. And them something strange occurred, as I started to run, it didn't hurt and the areas of cramping didn't seem to be getting affected. I was really surprised, so I slowly started to up the effort until I got close to the pace I was aiming for. Amazingly, I was able to maintain the pace somewhat for the first half of the marathon. I took good long walks at each water station. The run course is a 3 loop relatively flat course on a running trail very similar to our on SRT with paved and dirt sections (I think our SRT trail actually has nicer scenery). There were also good amount of shading on the course which helped because at the start of the run, it was pretty hot, high 80s-low 90s. However, temps quickly dropped as it got to around 6 PM. As I got to mile 14, I started to ease back a bit because I got past the half way point and wanted to make sure I wasn't hurting myself later on the run. At this point, my water walks got even longer. As I got to the next hurdle in my mind, around mile 21, and I decided that I could probably continue to push it and meet my running time goal but that I'd rather start enjoying the race again (after hating it for the past 5-6 hrs) and that it be nice to run to finish line, in not too much pain. So I decided to just walk more and run for a minute, here and there. Along the way, I started chatting with other athletes and ended up making friend with a couple of the them by the end of the finish line.

Interesting thing on the run - I must have seen around 10 people full on puking on the run trail. I don't think I recall seeing that at last year's IM or any other HIM or marathons. Final run time 5:10:30 (my slowest marathon time ever but considering I almost didn't get to the run portion, I've very proud of the time)

TOTAL TIME: 14:33:04 - I was originally shooting for under 14 hrs but I'm very, very, happy with the time since it's wasn't a DNF.